Canadian Government Executive - Volume 23 - Issue 02

6 / Canadian Government Executive // February 2017 Kevin Rydberg Making Government Websites Accessible For People With Disabilities: Design Outlook, Challenges and Opportunities C anada has made great strides to make public spaces accessible to persons with disabilities over the past several decades. Look around your government building today and you’re likely to see many amenities to support the 4.82 million Canadians with a disability. But we must remind ourselves that our world now spans beyond the physical. Government departments are likely well aware that their digital spaces are far less accommodating. Many local and municipal websites’ coding still isn’t fully compatible with assistive technol- ogy used by people with disabilities who struggle to read, hear and engage with websites. This is a concern, particularly for the 1.2 million Canadians with limited dexterity, the 949,000 who are partially sighted or blind, or indeed the millions more who are color blind, dyslexic or hard of hear- ing. They need aids, software and devices to help them read a web page, access a document or fill in a form. If the website’s code doesn’t properly engage to those aids, those people simply can’t log in. Rules, Guidelines and Future Laws In 2011, the Government of Canada re- leased its Standard of Web Accessibility, which called on all government websites to be Web Content Accessibility Guide- lines (WCAG) 2.0 ‘Level AA’ compliant. WCAG 2.0 is the international standard for websites, created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). WCAG 2.0 is made up of guidelines and principles with measure- able success criteria at three levels (Level A, AA and the gold standard, AAA.) Most government officials currently see this as a guideline as opposed to a hard- and-fast rule, but more robust efforts are in the works. The Honourable Carla Qual- trough, Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, is currently leading consulta- tions on the accessibility barriers Canadi- ans face in their daily lives with a listening tour around the country, and digital acces- sibility is a big part of that conversation. But the real work to implement WCAG 2.0 now is happening at the provincial level and Ontario is leading the way. The Acces- sibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) is the measuring stick for efforts to level the playing field for all. The AODA’s guidelines for web accessibility are practi- cal and attainable, they lay out a sensible timeline and all the resources in Ontario are written in a plain language. By now, all Ontario government web spaces should be at WCAG 2.0 ‘Level AA’ standard. And other provinces are following Ontar- io’s lead. The Accessibility for Manitobans Act (AMA) includes the Information and Communications Standard that explicitly calls on anyone who provides services to address barriers to accessing information online, but it doesn’t specify a WCAG 2.0 standard that’s necessary to do this. Que- bec’s public websites should comply with its custom-made standard SGQRI 008-01, which is comparable to Level AA. In 2014, British Columbia set out a 10-year plan to make the province accessible to all, includ- ing all online spaces. It’s moving forward well, and last December gov.bc.ca met Lev- el AA standards. As Rules Evolve, Pressure Builds The problem today is that these mandates are understood and appreciated by smaller government website managers and practi- tioners, but they are not being met. Time, lack of resources and financial strains are all barriers facing governments that know their websites are not meeting Level AA or even Level A standards. Until now, Ca- nadian governments have been operating